Mikita Badziakouski, Ben Lamb and Stephen Chidwick were among the first players who showed up in the spectacular Landing Casino, ready to test their skills in the warm-up tournament of the 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju event; the HKD $100,000 Short Deck Ante Only.
While all three are renown for their prowess in high stakes waters, the short deck opens a new door for players trying to seek for an edge against established high stakes regulars. With a ton of strategical aspects of the game yet to be figured out, the likes of Badziakouski, Lamb and Chidwick found a new challenge.
They competed in a total 19-entry field on Day 1a which included five re-entries. The format of a 100,000 starting stack and two extra shells available at any time helped to create an environment full of huge exchanges and chip swings right off the bat. Most of the players adapted to the dynamic in a fan-favorite way; the chips were getting splashed around.
Chow Hing Yaung stood out in the battles as he was continuously torturing his opponents on the secondary table. He crossed the 1 million mark midway through the day when he called down Marcus Yi Lim with a king-high straight against queen-high straight. Chow then scored a bunch of knockouts to cruise towards the end of the day with an impressive 1,953,000, good for a chip lead.
Ultimately, only four players would make it through. Alan Sass was the main man responsible for cutting the field at the end of the day. He was landing some vicious hits at the expense of all Lamb, Chidwick and Badziakouski, eliminating the three superstars in the last level. Sass' fine push helped him increase his stack to 1,879,000 to close the opening stage right on Chow's heels. Gabe Patgorski (962,000) and Kenneth Kee (904,000) also found bags and will be back in action on Day 2 on Wednesday, July 25.
Sass and Patgorski have already made it to a short deck final table, they met in the finale of the inaugural short deck event at Triton Montenegro with Sass taking seventh prize while Patgorski walked away in third place.
Those who fell on Day 1a might try their luck once again tomorrow as Day 1b gets underway at 4 p.m. local time. Lamb and Chidwick have now gained their first experience with the game as they had never played a hand of short deck poker before today. Meanwhile, more high stakes grinders are expected to land in Jeju and join the competition so make sure to come back to PokerNews to follow the live coverage of the immense short deck action.
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Alan SassBen LambChow Hing YaungGabe PatgorskiKenneth KeeMarcus Yi LimMikita BadziakouskiStephen ChidwickTriton
. Sass scored an elimination on the last hand of the day and the four remaining players bagged their advancing stacks while Badziakouski will have another chance to fire tomorrow in Day 1b.
